Studio 54

Ian Schrager, the cofounder of famed New York club, Studio 54 has announced that he will write a book about the iconic celebrity party spot. Founded by Schrager and the late Steve Rubell in 1977, the club was frequented by many of the brightest, most enigmatic and talented artists from 1977 when it opened until 1981 when it closed down. It embodied the glamour, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll of that time. Many fashion visionaries have cited Studio 54 as a great source of inspiration and there is a lot to be inspired by with such iconography. Take for example, the images of Bianca Jagger riding in to the club on a white horse at her birthday party, an act that married the drug fueled outrageousness of the scene with the glamour of the clientele. Tom Ford recently told the Council of Fashion Designers of America that a favourite photo of Diane von Furstenberg with Ara Gallant at Studio 54 had been on his vision board for over 20 years. In an interview celebrating 40 years of the wrap dress, Furstenberg told Harper’s Bazaar “With Studio 54, with that whole time, there was a very short window – where we thought we had invented freedom. But of course we didn’t know anything.” Of that time, designer Carolina Herrera said, “Studio 54 promised that something extraordinary would happen every night and it did. Impending extravaganza! There was gold dust everywhere. We used to return to the Mayfair and leave a golden trail all over the floor.” In these photos you will see that the life and movement captured on film is unparalleled by any hot spot that has ever existed and likely ever will.